Em...Radar so far!

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So it’s not entirely my business, but feel like drumpf’ing around this fine Sunday.

It’s been 2 wks or so TC posts started running snippet versions on auto via radar. Excellent attempt and all. But if what is intended is engagement. Personally speaking I haven’t been much engaged.

I would like to see some dedicated accounts/users on radar that would focus 2-3 of their daily posts to bringing radar hot tech topicals/news.

You guys could recruit users for this dedicated functions based on those with threads here with the most engagement of recent times. I mean, Mr Banks, what should all those notifications you keep getting about our activities count for?

Recruit these guys and have them dedicate 1 sizzling thread/news a day.

People won’t start discussions on their own everytime, all the time, you have to spur them most times.

I don’t think there much difference from how Rd.com and upworthy.com have turned into such Strong Media/Content Providers besides their originals, they reshash “other people’s” stuffs in interesting ways and republish in the way their audience love.

Additionally, you guys could build a simple browser extension, which will enable direct creations of threads while browsing posts on the web. Most times I see an interest piece after reading I totally forget to share.

A simple tool like this could encourage engagement, after the user must have added his/her own take as the body of the thread of course.

How you reward those other guys that are dedicated to bringing radar hot developments with teasing preambles, is up to you, maybe a free pass or 2 to an event from time to time? And they can rated based off the thread engagements, so they better know how to pick hot topics or be replaced.

Just my 50 cents - heard those aren’t worth much nowadays.

@lordbanks

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I have also been thinking about suggesting some of your ideas to @lordbanks. As of the past 2 weeks, radar has been progressively less engaging. most of what is seen is a techcabal post with quite a number of views but no reply.
I think most people are aware that the techcabal posts are automated and are actually links to TC articles(which is not bad for traffic). but poor for engagement. Imagine seeing all new threads are techcabal posts with 0 replies. nobody communes or converses with a robot(at least not yet). so we basically have dead/ inactive threads being what about 80% of the community sees.

Another thing is the way Radar guys beat down on people’s ideas, startup or work. it’s getting better of late but still pretty harsh. I think we could be more supportive and constructive in criticisms and advice.

@87_chuks last I checked, 50 cents = bankruptcy :smirk:

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This hurts the community so much. People would rather keep mute than watch their ideas get bashed from sarcastic comments here and there.

I think the TC team can hire moderators (possibly from the community) to post interesting topics that spure insightful discussion just like @87_chuks mentioned.
I also noticed that lots of wannabe founders join the forum lately so am thinking that there could be a sort of community driven mentorship program from experience founders ( that are still at the early stage of building a business). I joined a community driven mentorship program like that and it has so far paid off.

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As much as I agree with you that Radar is now getting a bit boring, I do not support the idea of incentivising contributors as it will just open another can of dangerous worms like dem Linda Ikeji’s minions that drop single line comments like “I See” or “OK Now” with the hope that one day Aunty Linda will again dash out 50K to the first 20 people to comment.

Yep, I also support that the copy and paste of Techcabal posts should be stopped. If you think the post from Techcabal is interesting enough, Abeg write a couple of lines in “Forum like” language and then add a link back

About “beating down” people’s idea. There is nothing wrong with that. Welcome to new world democracy. I don’t like what Trump has to say but the law of democracy gives him every right to voice his opinions. If you are not ready for unbiased feedback, then ask only your Mum for feedback as your siblings too may just disagree with you.

Infact its views like this that presents the fundamental flaw in Radar. Folks needs to understand that Radar is a playground for adults and not for stroking the egos of folks with God complex. The fact that I do not agree with you does not mean that I hate you and wish you bad luck. Also teacher can not force us to play together, if I don’t like the way you think, I should be able to pass my opion like any reasonable and rational adult while still playing on the playground.

What Radar needs are proper early adopters that have no products to peddle but just interested in having sincere conversations. In fact it should be the Ogas at the Top of BigCabal starting and moderating these discussions. They should try to reply to every single post and put forward their own point of view. I don’t think there are up to 100 new posts per day on Radar at the moment and if the Ogas cant moderate and contribute now, then I can see a palace coup in the horizon. I believe all these Radar conversations should actually start in their office, beer parlour or Sisi Yemi’s backyard then extended online and the rest of the world will join in.

Just my own 50cents. This means when have now raised a dollar…

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You make astute points. One question. Who are “these guys”, and where can I find them?

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You make astute points. One question. Who are “these guys”, and where can I find them?

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Lol. In my opinion, for the engagement stuff, the solution is not neccesarily spurring contributors or stopping the TC posts totally. like @henryC said. A TC person could just reframe the interesting(not all) topics of discussion into “forum-like” language. I dont think it’s much work.

As for the hiring of moderators. I am not too sure about the “hiring” but some avid users of radar who have gained your respect or trust could be given assigned as moderators to help restore order when the community’s rules are flouted.

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@Tola you must have read my post in a haste.

Never said anything about Incentivizing for posts/comments. Rather Incentivize Thread starters, if you have a hot topic started in such a way to spur engagement you don’t need prop commenters.

There are folks here that would love to curate hot news and naturally this topics build engagement around themselves. Pick them to create content for Radar instead of the snippet challenge from TC.

This is something that should be done low key, no special lable on their profiles.

Again, about the browser extension, if you remember StumbleUpon one of the most interesting things about that content portal was the way they make you bookmark your most interesting reads for them too. Even Oprah was a fan.

Now, coming to the product feedback or lack of it.

I must point out; if someone takes the time to look at your site and makes the effort to word up an elaborate review and peraventure the feedback isn’t all Rosy for your hard fought/built startup, you should actually pay attention MORE, especially to whatever negatives pointed out.

However, if as a reviewer one cannot take out the time to do an elaborate review before labelling a product then don’t do the “get off the founders bandwagon, you ain’t worth #%&@” speech, that truly isn’t healthy.

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I think the issue of TC posts flowing into Radar itself is not a bad thing. Actually this has been a long requested integration (see below), which in my opinion would work better if posts were cherry picked before being passed into Radar. Instead of just a direct feed. In all I think it’s a great idea…just needs to be tweaked to be better.

For toxic environment, my personal views are that Radar can only be said to a micro view of the society/tech ecosystem. Of course you have to take the good and the bad with it.

So for a techie, when you take our cultural factors, mix it with a dash of genius and drops of mediocrity = god complex. And this cuts both ways. That’s why some people will stay away from Radar, because they’re not worshipped the way they think they deserve. Similarly, that’s why some will deliver scathing feedback, because mere mortals can be addressed anyhow. So it’s not toxic, it’s just the way our egos have set us up, to be.

But crucially, if one is asking for feedback, the key thing is to remember that ‘in the world of feedback, friendly feedback and honest feedback aren’t even in the same universe. Seek to be one who gives it straight’. That’s actually a great thing about Radar…you get loads of honest feedback (of course laced with our ego issues).

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I think it’s the same side of the coin. Incentivising to either start or contribute to a thread will only attract people that are interested in the incentives. Paying/Selecting certain gifted people to curate hot news is the domain of TechCabal - a blog in which you read to learn about what is happening. Techcabal is just like attending a daily talk or a seminar - 1 hour lecture and 10 minutes for questions or comments.

On the other hand, Radar - a forum - is for discussions and conversations - meetup of like minded people around a coffee table or at a beer parlour. You talk, I Talk, We argue and maybe at the end of the day we may start fighting before the bouncer comes to kick us out and we all attack the bouncer together. We meetup again the next day and we do it all over again.

Now can you imagine someone being paid to seat at the beer parlour all day? I think it will become monotonous and we will all try to avoid conversing with him as its apparent that he is just doing his job and may not be sincere in his conversations. Infact, he will keep looking at his watch and once its closing time, the poor dude may just stand up and leave in the middle of a very important conversation.

If I knew, I will fire up a $5 droplet and install discourse too then attract them. To be sincere you guys have done a fantastic job so far but I think you have turned on auto-pilot too soon. IMHO, you guys are the rockstars here and folks what to hear your views about everyday tech yarns. Forget about being politically correct, ad agencies will still come to you if your traffic is solid but you hold a conflicting views. You guys have to be that sexy latino barista that knows how to keep everyone on the table talking by just checking in from time to time. You may want to take a note from CodingHorror as he gets involved in over 95% of discussions on his forum.

Another 50 cents making $1.50…

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Like I said Tola this can be done OTC no need to blast a request out on the forum.

Look out for users that have started some of the most interesting threads here and ‘recruit’ them to curate at a more dedicated pace.

For the past week some enquiry-threads have floated on the homepage. Not for sake of active engagements on them. More for lack of better topicals to engage the usually active members.

Touching on your beer parlour analogy, it would be more apt to think of the beer as the threads and talks/rants ensuing as commentaries. Users need something to consume, even varieties if I might add, so making sure there is something to drink (interesting threads to digest) whenever they walk into the parlour/radar would ensure a full house each time.

When you’re done with the fund raising we can donate some to Mr Jackson (Curtis JR).

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Well Said…

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Another problem with the TC posts on Radar is that some topics are duplicated. One example that comes to mind is the Balogun website. It had been posted under products category and TC posted their article about it again.

When I read this, I had to ask myself when last I saw @seyitaylor comment on a topic.

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Frankly, I’ve stayed away from Radar because the moderation was just not good and most of the people I could rely on to give good responses also stopped posting.

Trolls have a tendency to be rewarded because they’re controversial (shoutout to @lordbanks for actually making a welcome back thread for a user he banned for bad behaviour), even when they add nothing to conversations and too many threads have gone sideways for no reason and it takes too long before anything is done about it.

But also the main reason I think I and a lot of people that used to post here don’t anymore is also the quality of content. Something @sugabelly and I think @xolubi brought up a lot in the earlier days but people accused her of being elitist. Low quality content doesn’t inspire high quality engagement. Topics that are asking abstract questions, or things they could have Googled, for instance. People that just post links to topics and expect the conversation to magically happen. There aren’t enough people on here for that. Every board has this but the ratio is off. I’m more likely to see the above, so I’m more likely to not bother checking. I think more stringent policies should be placed on topics. Or at least a system set in place (not sure Discourse can do this) so that lower quality topics sink or are hidden. I don’t know, I honestly don’t have a solution for this.

Also I think TC took way too long to integrate its main site with Radar.

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Totally agree. These days, I just open Radar, then close it to move on living my life. Many of the top posts cannot call for any conversation of any kind. Order of posts by recency can be blamed for this, I guess.

Some posts are mere questions that can be Googled, like you said. Others are events/news that have gone through Twitter already. It’s already old gist.

+a new trend to dump products and jobs on the service. It’s okay but I believe it should be “regulated”. Some persons open account just the express purpose of this. I mean, you’ve never contributed to a forum, but you think it’s cool for the forum members to test, evaluate and use your products. Give before you take. Perhaps posting in products and jobs should be reserved for active members only.

Another trend I notice is, some of the interesting people are starting to stop commenting or posting. Thank you @tola @PapaOlabode @87_chuks for keeping on. Truth is, many persons, I believe look into a thread, see the participants, then consider if it’s worthy or not. This is what I do, tbh.

@xolubi , whats up?
This I think is a problem, and as a result of same problem. Like chicken and egg. Interesting folks are dropping out because they are not seeing posts from other interesting folks.

One more thing, those “fancy entrepreneurs” that have done AMA, or raised funds, once active but no longer. Perhaps it is taken that Radar is for folks that have too much time in their hands. A signal that Radar is for the noisemakers, the kids, and wannabe entrepreneurs. We get it, but no one wants to be seen as that, and I suspect it’s partly why interesting folks are dropping out.

For instance, I expect @markessien to have talked on the hotel posts, or Bankole bringing him in, just if he isn’t seeing the notifs. Such passes a message to everyone that being inactive on Radar is synonymous to being busy/successful/awesome. I don’t know if my logic is clear. Perhaps reward people that are very active, and contribute well. The Cabal stamp and its exclusivity is OK and fancy. But maybe something else more, I don’t know. Smart people tend to have this latent ego, maybe tap into that.

I think it is generally tough to run or manage any forum. Nairaland of 2010 is not the same now. Everything today, on the front page is Olajumoke, and posts from Linda Ikeji.

If anything, I believe it is back to @lordbanks as the convener to restart and bring up actual conversations, mention interesting people to get involved, and not leave it TC bots. And be active as well in his own ways. When you are inactive, or don’t reply to post, you are making me understand a few things there.

It’s hard work, but what isn’t these days?! Like anyone, I would appreciate those interesting Radar conversations again.

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I don’t think people beat down or bash people’s ideas. Nigerians are raised with the mentality of “if you are criticizing me, you must be hater and you must have an agenda”

This prevents people who come here with ideas or products from listening because it devolves into a battle of defensiveness.

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Louder for the people in the back. :loudspeaker::loudspeaker::loudspeaker:

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I know he was doing this at first, but both he and Seyi rarely post. When Seyi used to post he rarely replied, even when he was directly engaged (but that’s just my experience). When the person that created the forum, who should be most invested can’t be bothered to engage then it sends a message. I follow a couple of forums and the mods/admins are just as likely to reply as any member, because they care about the subject.

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Thank you for this. I don’t know if it’s arrogance or higher than thou attitude but whatever. You won’t be replied if you aren’t Oo or Mark or some exalted individual.

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I commend @87_chuks for raising dust regarding the Present State of Radar.

I think Radar’s Reputation Systems has a large role to play here. Reputatiom System have become a popular tactic for online communities of all shapes and sizes. They come in many forms — from iterations of the Facebook ‘like’ button to badges and awards for contributing content. Implementing a good reputation system will also help users of Radar create their own identity. This will also help Radar Users identify major influencers in our audiences.

Reddit, the popular content sharing community, maintains a reputation system called ‘link karma’ that functions similar to a ‘like’ button. Badges and awards representing ‘achievements’ are the standard at LitReactor, a community for literary enthusiasts.

I once had the ‘CABAL’ privilege which disappeared due to some weird reasons. I didn’t feel it cause I didn’t even know it’s value. I had no idea why I had the privilege at first and later robbed of it.

I think it’s fair enough to have the users with the ‘CABAL’ kick-off hot post and instigate engagement. Radar Content should have strong assertions — but opening the discussion is just as important. The CABAL’s could use tactics such as identifying specific people in a post to asking a related question at the end of the content to get more comments.

When users contribute, the admins and CABAL’s should goto great lengths to make contributors feel comfortable about sharing their opinion.

@lordbanks, I think the privilege of being a CABAL should be enough to assume the office of the guys in question. Find them in the CABAL. Hopefully, the CABAL’s are folks that understand the perplexing task of maintaining a good content.

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